


we'll be demon hunters

by slutorama



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: ....... i guess, Basically, F/F, Gen, an au in which tara & faith move to sunnydale in their own ways long before faith is called, and become their own tiny scooby gang, and they find each other, the demon hunters au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 03:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13402224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slutorama/pseuds/slutorama
Summary: tara & faith move to sunnydale in their own ways long before faith is called or tara embraces her magick





	we'll be demon hunters

In the crowd of sweaty teenagers swaying and whipping their heads to the rhythmic music, Tara appeared out of place. She slumped against a far wall of the Bronze with a curtain of brown hair concealing her flushed cheeks, and both of her arms wrapped around her midsection. One of her hands remained glued to her side protectively, while the other held a plastic cup filled with something pink and fruity and not-so-bad, actually, once she gave it a chance.

Tara couldn't help wishing the drink had been mixed with something stronger, something undoubtedly alcoholic, if only to feel more comfortable in the forest of strangers. Still, she knocked back sip after sip of her virgin drink, hoping for some sort of placebo effect. She used those rare moments when her eyes weren't glued to the floor to scan the club for Donny, who she consistently found talking up a dark-haired girl in leather pants and a wife beater at the left side of the stage.

Tara took that moment to check for him once more and squinted at the side stage, frowning when she couldn't pick him out in the sea of teenagers. He tended to stick out like a sore thumb, due to the culture shock of ditching their small town in chilly Washington for sunny California, but Tara couldn't spot the pattern of his flannel anywhere.

She huffed and took a shaky sip from her drink to calm her nerves. The entire purpose in going out tonight had been to spy on Donny, per her father's orders, and she'd lost him. Tara gripped her side even harder and gulped down the whimper threatening to leave her lips.

Her father had trusted her to do something and she let him down. It wasn't shocking, but there was a certain level of fear tacked on. Dad hadn't pretended like the request to keep an eye on her brother held anything more than a threat attached to it, but it didn't bother her earlier at home. She had finally felt useful for something other than housework for once in her life, and ultimately she failed.

_Of course she failed_ . That was what her father would say. _Of course_. And then he'd punish her.

Tara's shivered at the chill rippling through her skin and goosebumps broke out across her forearms. She rubbed them comfortingly and chewed her bottom lip, scanning the crowd of people desperately for her brother, to no avail.

With a solemn sigh and a strained gulp of fruity liquid that almost made her hack and cough, she tossed her cup in a nearby waste bin and set off across the dance floor. Tara wanted to push and shove her way through the throngs of people like the hurricane she sometimes imagined herself as, but her default mode kept her eyes trained on the floor and her arms wrapped around her waist in feigned comfort. She shouldered her way through the crowd without so much as a glance from the people dancing around her, a fact that both comforted and disheartened her.

Tara knew a fair bit about her brother's nights out, having taken red-faced threats and a few blows over the secret he demanded she keep, but she didn't have all the details. As far as she knew, he hopped back and forth between the Bronze to somewhere secluded enough for him to sleep with a random girl, before wandering home for the difficult climb through his bedroom window. She relied on instinct to follow his trail tonight, and it led her out a back door and into the cool night air behind the Bronze.

The alley smelled like something had died, then rotted, then died again, and Tara soon decided this wasn't the sort of place for a decent guy's late night rendezvous. As she turned to go back inside, though, she heard a soft moaning from somewhere beyond a stack of crates and garbage. Her cheeks flushed an even brighter shade of red. Tara gulped hard and followed the sounds, which only increased in volume and multiplied her second hand embarrassment as she closed in on a corner alley that wrapped around the side of the club.

She turned the corner, and there he was, leaned against a wall making out with the pretty dark-haired girl from inside. The girl was in the middle of unbuttoning his pants, and if it hadn't been for the mission, Tara certainly would have turned and ran the other way to avoid such an encounter, but her options were limited. Either leave Donny to his own devices and allow him to stumble home for the fourth time this week, or intervene and possibly win a few brownie points with her father, and God knows she needed a few of those.

“D-D-Donny?” Tara cringed at the hitch of her own voice, but tried to keep her head lifted high as she approached the duo, “Y-y-you're n-not supposed to…”

Donny wasted no time slinging the girl he'd been so into seconds earlier to the side, glaring menacingly at Tara all the while. The girl landed on the pavement just a few feet away from a trash pile, but she didn't stay down for more than a second before she leaped up to charge at Donny.

“What the hell?” the girl snarled. Her clenched fists and gritted teeth had Tara regretting her mission more and more, and she very much wanted to disappear. Didn't she have a spell for invisibility? If only she could remember…

Donny spun around and pointed at the girl. “Shut it!”

The girl stopped dead in her tracks at his command, darting her gaze between the siblings, before crossing her arms over her chest and rolling her eyes in annoyance. “Whatever.”

Donny took a few steps her way, and Tara gulped again, this time finding her throat dry and scratchy. His eyes smoldered with a rage he reserved for her specifically, and she braced herself for the worst. He took her by the shoulders, squeezing practiced fingers into her delicate skin, and shoved her against a nearby brick wall.

“What're _you_ doin' here?” he asked, almost mocking in his tone of voice, “Figured you'd be home doin' dishes or somethin'.”

“Dad… h-he kn-kn- _knows_ ,” she said, shutting her eyes tight and turning her head into the wall at her back in a desperate attempt to hide.

To her surprise, Donny released her and stumbled back a few steps, the fire in his eyes little more than a few embers of leftover rage by the time he turned his back to her. He shook his head and threw his hands in the air, wandering to the girl who still hadn't moved from where she stood a few yards away.

“Looks like the party's over,” he said to her, reaching out to touch her arm.

The girl slapped his hand away, to Tara's shock. “You really know how to treat a girl, huh?” She scowled and rubbed the spot where he'd tried to grab her.

Donny rolled his eyes and pointed at the door to the Bronze. “Like you'd know how a girl's s'posed to be treated. Get lost already.”

“Who's that? Your ex or somethin'?” the girl questioned, narrowing her gaze on Tara's trembling form.

She still hadn't abandoned her spot against the wall where Donny left her, and shrunk further inward at the stranger's glare. Tara wrapped her arms around her stomach and trained her eyes on Donny's shoes to avoid eye contact with his angry acquaintance.

“Sister,” he spat, like he would a curse word, then said a bit more firmly, “Now, didn't ya here me? Get lost.”

The girl laughed to herself and flipped Donny off before walzting back around the corner, leaving the same way Tara came.

Donny paused for a moment, his fists white-knuckled and shaking. Tara didn't dare move.

“Dad send you?” he said after a pause. Tara refused to meet his eyes, but he stomped toward her and before she knew it, he stood barely a foot away, hot beer breath swirling around her face. “Well? Cat got your tongue, Tare? Did he send you or not?”

Tara nodded. “Y-yeah.”

Rough hands grasped her arms again, jostling her head just enough to force eye contact. Donny searched her face for something, maybe a lie, maybe the indignant expression she sometimes exhibited when he manhandled her, or maybe the fear that he liked to absorb from her like a flower taking in the sun's rays.

“How'd he find out?”

Tara chewed her bottom lip and tried to lower her gaze, but a shake from Donny's grip kept her focus on him. She cringed. “N-n-not me. I swear. I'd n-never.”

One of the hands abandoned her shoulder, and Tara reared back against the wall to await the blow that she knew he'd throw her way, only to hear a loud crash from somewhere nearby that startled both of them.

“The hell was that?” Donny snarled, whirling around in search of the sound with his fist raised.

Tara looked up and down the alley, only to find the area empty, save for the two of them. Donny wandered the nearby area, trying to find the source of the noise. Against her better judgment, Tara extracted herself from the brick wall and tip-toed to the corner where the girl she'd caught Donny with had disappeared to. A peek around revealed something disconcerting, something downright monstrous, and she flattened herself against the new wall while Donny continued staggering around grumbling expletives.

The man she'd seen lurking around the entrance didn't look human, in fact, he looked a lot like the illustrations in some of her mother's magic books. If only she could remember exactly which one, maybe she could conjure up a spell to protect the two of them from the bumpy-faced monster. Tara had never been one to dwell on the pages about demons and scary things, though. She tended to focus her attention on meditation and healing. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_. The mantra repeated itself while she banged the back of her head against the cement wall in time with the words flooding her brain. All of the pieces were there, laid out in front of her, but she couldn't fathom where to begin.

Donny walked up to her spot against the wall and, being the all-powerful oaf of a guy that he was, waltzed right past her in the direction of the monster that had her so frightened. Tara turned to whisper to him that maybe, just this once, he should follow her lead, but the words died in the back of her throat when her brother disappeared from view.

His decision to be bold and brash forced her hand. Tara didn't particularly like Donny, but her father did, and if she let him get killed, she was as good as dead back at home. Tara sucked in a ragged breath and shook the chill from her spine.

She could do this.

Tara rounded the corner, still hunched over like she had a stomach ache, and quickly noticed that the scene was clear of both her brother and the disgusting looking man from before. Her heart sunk. Either it had dragged her brother off somewhere, or they'd both gone inside the Bronze, neither of which were great possibilities.

She went with her gut and slipped inside the club again, the music quieter and softer than it had been earlier. There had been a local band playing before, but they must have taken a break because a DJ had taken over, playing some slow song for all the couples in the place. Tara saw the band's guitarist hanging off of some red-headed girl, and just beyond the two of them, Donny.

Well, thank God for that.

Tara weaseled her way through the crowd, earning far more “watch its” than “excuse mes” or stilted silence this time around. She kept her manners and did her best to squeeze through without bothering happier patrons, finally finding Donny against the wall with the exact same girl again. It looked like he was talking her into going back outside, but Tara couldn't be sure. She closed in on them, and the girl he had his hands all over noticed her approach. She rolled her eyes.

“Your stupid sister's back,” she said, shoving him off.

Donny whirled around and rolled his eyes at the sight of her too. “What do you want?”

Tara bit her lip and eyed a cup on the ground, one that had been pounded down by dancing shoes all night into a flattened piece of plastic. Her mind raced. Should she tell him about the demon? Would he even believe her? Donny knew they were real, he knew what existed in Tara's soul at that very moment, so he should have believed her… right?

“It's, um, I mean, th-there's s-something… and I-I can't talk about it here.”

“Can't you see I'm busy?”

Tara frowned and shook her head, meeting his gaze. “It's a… you-know, um, a _thing_.”

That got his attention, at least a little bit. His eyes flickered with knowing and he pushed his friend further away. The girl crossed her arms and flipped her hair over her shoulder, but wouldn't leave his side. Tara couldn't help but wonder what kind of person would stick around someone so rude as Donny, but then she thought of her own mother's missteps and decided she wasn't in a position to judge.

“You're just bein' stupid, Tare,” he said, his voice barely loud enough to hear over the slow jam whistling through the speakers, “Run along home, now.”

Tara gulped and straightened her jaw. “I-I won't. I kn-know what I… what I saw.”

“Don't make me do somethin' I _won't_ regret,” Donny said, taking on a more threatening stance. Legs slightly apart, a fist drawn and ready to use at his side, and the girl who'd been inching closer to him in the minutes prior had shrunk away. Somehow, she seemed to sense the danger too.

“C-can we just go?” Tara begged, her eyes welling with the tears of fear, “I'm supposed to… to make sure you come home on time. For dad. W-we can just g-go.”

Donny rolled his eyes and relaxed his hand. “He promise you a medal or somethin'? Get lost already. I'm busy.”

Tara hung her head and sighed. “O-okay. I'm sorry.”

“Sorry don't sum it up this time,” he grumbled, reaching for his arm candy again. The girl looked uncomfortable in his grasp, despite the leather boots and blood red lipstick that said she might feel otherwise.

Tara gave the stranger a final look of defeat and turned on her heels to weather the crowd a final time and start her trek home. Her father would be furious, no doubt, but maybe her mother could calm him down with a spell or something. It wouldn't have been the first time.

Halfway through the crowd, and at the middle of the dance floor, the speakers cut out and the room fell deathly silent, save for the boos of the crowd. Tara whirled around to look at the stage, along with everyone else in the building, and gasped when she saw the monster from outside the club flexing undead muscles above an amp he'd just kicked over.

It didn't take more than that to send the party goers of Sunnydale running for the back. Dozens of sweaty bodies made a break for the exit, while Tara remained firmly planted in place, despite the people shoving her out of their way. Tara kept her eyes glued to the stage, only tearing her gaze away to check on Donny and his girl in the corner, where they gawked at the monster before them like everyone else. If he didn't believe her before, he certainly did now, and the thought almost had her smirking and shouting “I told you so” at him from across the room.

Almost. Barring the life or death situation. And, really, _shouting_? That wasn't the kind of girl she was.

The sea of people flooding backward came to a screeching halt, and Tara whirled around to find more monsters standing in front of the exit doors. If she hadn't been shaking in her boots before, she was now. Tara cut across the side of the crowd to join her brother instead. He wouldn't make her feel any safer, far from it, actually, but a familiar face could be halfway comforting sometimes.

The grotesque-faced beings shouted at the people nearest to the doors, but Tara didn't follow their tirades. She had been too busy muscling her way back to the relative safety of Donny and the dark-haired girl, and she needed to remember which demons these were so she could do… something. The jury was still out on exactly _what_ she'd do.

“Can't you, I dunno, poof 'em?” Donny asked, his voice a low growl loaded down with fear. Tara should have enjoyed hearing him sound like the puppies he kicked, but she could only think about how scared he must have been to ask _her_ for help, and she gulped hard.

She slumped her shoulders as she said, “I'm n-not sure what they, um… _are_.”

“Blood suckers.”

Tara whipped around to the dark-haired girl and squinted. “What?”

“They're blood suckers,” she repeated, then rolled her eyes and said, “You know, vampires? Like in those black and white movies they play on channel 7 all the time.”

Donny nearly laughed when he asked,“How do you–”

“I dunno. They _look_ like the stuff of nightmares.” The girl shrugged her shoulders and fended off a glare from Donny for the crime of cutting him off and speaking over him. She met Tara's eyes instead and smirked. “Figured maybe they were.”

Tara smiled shyly and looked away from the girl. “N-no arguments here. They're scary.”

“Well,” the girl said, “D'you know how to get rid of 'em? Macho man over here seems to think you do.”

Donny scowled at both of them and crossed his arms, but remained silent.

“I-I'm not sure,” Tara said, hanging her head, “I've never h-had to–”

A crash broke the tense silence gathering around them, and the trio shifted their gaze to the skylight. Someone had fallen – or jumped? – right through it, not even bothering to open it and save the Bronze a window. To Tara's horror, she realized it was probably yet another bumpy-faced monstrosity. It crouched on the ground where it landed, light blonde hair whipping through the air as the figure shot to its feet and smiled.

“I didn't get an invitation,” the person, a _girl_ , said, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly as she shrugged out her words, “But I thought I'd drop in anyway.”

“Slayer!” one of the vampires shouted, the one Tara had spotted first. He shoved high school and college students alike out of his way to meet her in the middle of the dance floor. “Prepare to die!”

“Why do they always say that?” she quipped, to no one in particular, before throwing a punch at the monster. Her blow landed harder than Tara expected, harder than she'd ever seen a woman hit someone else before. The guy flew backward a few feet before falling to the floor, snarling and hissing threats at the girl, but she kept smirking and pulled some kind of wooden spike out of her leather jacket.

The rest of the vampires rushed her upon seeing their downed leader. The first three didn't have a chance. They leaped without looking, so to speak, and ended up as three smelly piles of dust before their leader even had a chance for round two. He raced up from the floor and tackled the girl down to the ground, punching and kicking at her madly, but she rolled out of it with expert precision and jumped onto his back to plunge that wooden spike into his chest.

He disappeared into a similar poof of dust, one that clouded around her feet once his body vanished and she landed on the ground. The girl spun the stake around in her hand and tilted her head at the remaining vampires.

“Maybe when he said 'prepare to die', he was talking about you guys.” she said, feigning a valley girl accent and wielding the piece of wood with a firmer grip, “So, who's next?”

The remaining vampires didn't hesitate. They made a break for the exit doors they'd blocked off earlier, throwing them open so hard some of the hinges broke as they sped out into the night. The blonde girl sighed and massaged her temples, muttering something Tara couldn't quite make out, then she looked up at the legion of bulging eyes staring at her and laughed airily.

Instead of offering any sort of explanation, the girl simply smiled nervously and ran off, disappearing into the crowd. T Tara's genuine surprise, apparently that was enough of an explanation for everyone in involved, and the Bronzers turned back to their friends and resumed whatever conversation they’d been carrying on before the near-death experience.

Tara's jaw dropped at the relaxed attitude of everyone in the building, and she uttered, “W-what–”

“–the hell–” Donny's girl added.

“Was that?” they finished simultaneously, staring curiously at one another.

The girl darted her gaze between Tara and the crowd of teenagers who had already begun setting the stage back up for either the DJ or the band, and frowned. “I don't get it.”

“M-me either,” Tara said, looking to Donny where he stood a few feet away staring at the two of them like they were idiots, “W-what?”

“It figures I'd get myself a hot chick that’s just as weird as _you_ ,” he said, throwing his hands up to venture out onto the dance floor again, “Screw this. I'm findin' some other girl.”

The dark-haired girl crossed her arms and flipped her hair. “Oh, god, I'm _so_ hurt,” she shouted as he disappeared into the sea of people, but then her expression faltered for a second, and she looked down at her toes, and she really _did_ look hurt.

Tara chewed her bottom lip and turned to go, thinking it best to keep her distance from this girl, but she felt a firm hand coil around her forearm that effectively stopped her in her tracks. The dark-haired girl jerked her back, and she was much stronger than Tara expected. Not quite on par with the blonde-haired superhero, but still tough for a girl.

“Where you goin'?” she asked, cocked eyebrow and all. The girl met her eyes, and Tara quickly dropped her gaze to the floor in order to hide the flush in her cheeks.

Tara gulped and said, “Um, home? P-probably. I m-mean, yes. Home.”

“No way, we gotta talk about this.”

“Talk about what?”

The music kicked back on then, thundering through the club with a volume it didn't quite have before. The girl tried to shout something, but Tara couldn't understand a word of it. She rolled her eyes and, keeping a steady grip on Tara's arm, dragged her to the back door of the club and into the cool evening air. Tara hardly struggled.

Once outside, though, Tara tore her arm out of her grasp and took a couple steps back. “What's wr-wrong with you?”

“Don’t act like all of them in there,” the girl snarled, pointing a finger in Tara’s face, “You know damn well what we just saw.”

“So?” Tara said, “It d-doesn’t seem like a big deal to a-anyone else. Maybe it’s n-normal?”

“Normal?”

Tara stared down at her shoes, realizing how stupid she sounded. “Maybe not, um, n- _normal_ , but...”

“Do you know about this stuff?” the girl interrupted Tara to ask, waving frantically in the general direction of the Bronze, “Like, monsters and weird shit?”

Tara shrugged her shoulders. “I-I know a little… not much.”

“Okay, but you think something weird happened in there too, right?”

“I guess.”

“Why doesn't anyone else, then?”

Tara paused and frowned at the ground, finding a few pieces of gravel on the paved road particularly interesting. It didn't make a whole lot of sense, but then again, some people liked to pretend the monsters under their beds weren't real. Tara couldn't blame them, not really, as she liked to feign ignorance to the evil lurking in her own home… beneath her own skin, even.

She met the girl's eyes and said, “I-I guess they don't _want_ to.”

The girl smirked, uncrossed her arms, and held out a hand, “Name's Faith.”

“Oh, um, sorry, I’m T-Tara.” She reached for Faith's hand somewhat hesitantly, but the girl latched on and shook it with vigor.

“Tara,” Faith said, releasing her to cross her arms again. Tara resumed hugging her stomach and watched Faith's features soften. “You’re cute.”

Tara’s cheeks flushed bright red again, just like they had when Faith looked into her eyes, and there was nothing she could do to hide it. She didn’t know what to say, no one had ever called her cute before, not since she was little, so she remained silent, glancing up every few seconds to see Faith grinning at her like she’d won a prize.

“Y’know, I _knew_ somethin' was off about this place.” Faith said finally with a shake of her head and a low laugh. “My mom was all, 'California is gonna be a whole new start for us, Faithy! Warmer and better than Boston, babe!' but at least Boston didn't have monsters runnin' around.”

Tara couldn't argue there. They'd moved to the town just a few months earlier, and she could still remember the chill she'd felt in the base of her neck when they drove by the Sunnydale city limits sign. The ripples of dark energy clouded her intuition even now and, as far as Tara was concerned, had probably been what made her mother so sick in the first place.

She'd brought that up to her father as soon as she thought it, hoping he’d care enough to do _something_ , but he’d just waved it off, just like he waved off her mother's illness, and it sat in the pit of Tara's stomach like a rock.

“Yeah. I s-sort of felt it too,” she said simply, not entirely willing to forgo her secret. Who knew what her father might have done if it got out around town that Tara and her mother were witches? It was bad enough that this Faith girl knew Tara had access to information about demons.

“You know what we gotta do now, right?”

Tara squinted. “Um, no.”

“We get to the bottom of it,” Faith said, her brown eyes alight with inspiration, “We find ‘em, we kill ‘em… we could be demon hunters, like that blonde girl, but… without the superpowers, I guess.”

“Do I l-look like a demon hunter?” Tara scoffed, tilting her head.

Faith waved her off. “Fine, _I’ll_ be the demon hunter. But you’ll be my, y’know, sidekick or whatever? Gettin’ with the research and the big speeches. It’s like living out some sci-fi horror movie.”

“Sci-fi?” Tara frowned. “What’s that?”

“God, what planet are you from?”

Tara shrugged and smiled self-deprecatingly. “A teeny tiny town in Alabama?”

Faith smirked at that, almost like she wanted to laugh, then said, “I like you.”

“Thanks, I-I guess.” Tara smiled, and in her sudden influx of flattery and fuzzy-gooey good feelings, she mentioned, “I… I do have books. About demons. I mean, um, they’re my m-mom’s, and I’m not supposed to, but I sneak peeks sometimes.”

“Think you could swipe a few?” Faith asked, “I like to know what I'm up against.”

“You do know, though. _Vampires_. H-how is that not enough to go on?”

“What good is knowin' what they are if I don't know how to take 'em out?” she said, “I mean, I could grab some vampire movies and settle in for a night of studying, and I’m probably gonna, but I dunno if fake vampires and real vampires die the same way.”

Tara frowned and sighed, “I can't just… I mean, they're not mine. I don't _have_ them.”

“Sure you do,” she said confidently, “You want 'em, you take 'em, you have 'em. Simple as that.”

“No, it's not that simple.”

Faith rolled her eyes. “ _Everything_ is that simple, T.”

“T?” Tara cocked a brow.

Faith stepped toward her and stopped just a few inches from Tara's face. She smirked, her blood red lipstick curling into the most seductive smile Tara had ever seen. “They're just books. Who's gonna miss 'em?”

Tara gulped and tried to lower her gaze, but Faith took up all of the immediate space and she had nowhere else to look. “My mom might,” she said finally, her voice low and uncertain.

“You're gonna help me,” Faith said, licking her lips, and it didn't sound like a joke or a game anymore, she sounded downright serious.

“Why?”

“Because it's, I dunno, whatever you wanna call it. Destiny?” Faith said, then added with an edge to her voice, “ _And_ you told me about your snoopy habits. I bet someone's wanting that dirt.”

“You're seriously blackmailing me?” Tara said with a frown, but Faith just laughed again.

“That or destiny. Your call.”

Tara scowled, but she didn't have any other cards to play. A spell could get her out of this, maybe one to throw little miss bad girl at a wall and give her amnesia, but Tara couldn't dream of casting something so vile. Not something that might hurt the girl, anyway. Against her better judgment, she nodded, because at least playing demon hunters with this weird girl could get her out of the house. Maybe even make her a friend. She wouldn’t mind a friend.

“Destiny, then.”

And they shook on it.


End file.
